


No Different Whined at than Withstood

by NeurotropicAgentX



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Coercion, Minor canon divergence, Other, Power Imbalance, The Hosts Are There Too I Guess, Tread Carefully, Very Xeno Even For Vore, Vore, Xeno, minor worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 06:29:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20335618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeurotropicAgentX/pseuds/NeurotropicAgentX
Summary: Before Venom pierced the rocket’s fuel-tank and won the war, it definitely lost a battle against Riot.





	No Different Whined at than Withstood

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got around to writing something (a little belatedly) for Vore Day. Had some difficulty tagging this one, more pornographic than porn, I think, and it touches on some dark themes. Many thanks to my editor.

Venom screeched as Riot caught a handful of its substance and _pulled_. The physical force was tearing at it and Riot released harsh chemical signals against its surface, orders to let go, unbind from its host, from _Eddie_. Venom tried to hold the pain away from the link, but Eddie was screaming too as its deepest anchoring projections were slowly ripped away from his flesh. Riot growled low, the harmonics edged with fury. Venom screeched back its defiance, but it couldn’t keep holding on, couldn’t keep letting Eddie suffer too.

One final wrench snapped the last of Venom’s connections to its host. The jagged edges of its outermost projections shifted and re-organised to compensate for the damage, but it couldn’t compensate for the weakness that came from losing mass. 

Riot kicked Eddie (_Eddie!_) away contemptuously. It didn’t see him as a threat, just an irrelevant alien now that it had ripped Venom from him. Maybe Eddie would live. Venom let itself hope. 

Riot’s claws tightened around and _through_ it. Venom thrashed, an instinctive response to being caught and held while it slowly burned in Earth’s hostile atmosphere. But wherever Riot was pressed against it, the oxygen couldn’t reach and there was an inexorable part of Venom that had missed this kind of closeness. A compatible host was better, _Eddie_ was better, aligning and shifting and filling the empty spaces in both of them. But this was a different kind of good, hard to ignore, and a kind that Venom had been deprived of for months while it had been imprisoned in Drake’s lab. They weren’t meant to be alone, isolated from each other. Even the acrid taste of Riot’s rage was still familiar, still a language that it hadn’t felt for too long.

Then Riot drew Venom closer toward its teeth. Venom shrieked, sprouting teeth and claws all along its surface to slash at Riot’s hand. It wouldn’t let itself be subsumed without a fight. Riot’s roar vibrated through the air. A dozen thin blades erupted from its hand, sliding into Venom’s mass. They weren’t tearing through the cells, not yet, but the threat was clear. **I will kill you if you force me to, but that’s not what I want.** Riot’s signal was a harsh-binding flood, the message delivered straight to every place they were touching.

**Know what you want,** Venom threw the signal back as intensely as it could. Riot wanted to consume it, integrate any useful pieces of code, discard the rest. Break it down into simple, useful pieces to be absorbed.

Riot’s next signal was more measured. **You think I want to be alone during the time it will take to get back?**

Venom didn’t point out that Riot had a host and wouldn’t be alone. That wasn’t how Riot thought and the observation would only anger it further. The fact that its host still smelled alive was surprising enough. Venom didn’t waste its energy on conscious signals, and just let its distrust and resentment seep out against Riot’s receptors.

**I can take you back with me. You obviously can’t be trusted with a host, but I can keep the oxygen away from your cells myself. Or you can keep fighting me and I’ll watch you oxidise on my claws.**

Terror writhed in Venom’s core. To be consumed was one thing. Loss of self, but integration into another, the potential to influence the consumer as remnants. Not pleasant, but not uncommon, not even unexpected for an outcast like Venom. But to die like this, slowly burning alive in a poisonous alien environment while its team leader simply _watched_.

Venom’s outer membrane thickened and tightened as shivers wracked its surface. **No. Wouldn’t do. No. A waste. Can’t.** The message was barely coherent against the background of Venom’s unconscious release of stress signals. 

Riot’s blades slowly drew out of Venom’s mass. **You’re right. I don’t want that. Stop fighting me and I’ll take us both home.**

Venom didn’t want that either and still thought Riot was just going to eat it. But Riot was strong and Venom was weak, and its only slim chance at living was going along with Riot’s wishes. Against every instinct, Venom reabsorbed its extra teeth and claws. It drew inwards, minimising exposure to the oxygen and signifying compliance. 

The deep rumble of satisfaction that Riot gave in response was disquieting. Riot was strong enough that it didn’t need Venom’s cooperation. That meant it had no reason to lie about its aim. Unless it was enjoying the acquiescence for its own reasons. Didn’t matter, Venom told itself. This wasn’t a fight it could win.

Riot held Venom aloft and its tongue slowly curled out as its teeth parted. Alien movements. Too much of the host in the way Riot was behaving, too much of a creature who couldn’t mingle with another of its kind and instead maintained such rigid barriers between self-and-not-self. Not that Venom hadn’t been influenced in the same way. Far more photoreceptors than necessary shifted over Venom’s surface. It couldn’t process the light like a human, like Eddie, but it saw the shapes and movement. Difficult not to sprout tendrils and wrap around Riot’s hand and wrist and keep itself away from the long dripping teeth. 

Riot dropped it and Venom held itself still, shivering. Every scrap of its willpower was bent toward not fighting back, to letting Riot’s jaws close around it unimpeded. The oxygen-burn stopped. The sudden absence of pain left Venom reeling. Riot was responsible for ripping it from Eddie, from its protection, but Venom couldn’t stop the feelings of relief and gratitude that rose in its core. No weapons, no pain, no tearing. Riot wasn’t hurting it, wasn’t taking it apart.

Venom shifted cautiously, a tiny movement to gauge the situation. Riot shifted in response, tendrils peeling off the inner surfaces of its flesh and wrapping slowly around Venom. There were no teeth along those tendrils, but Venom went utterly still. Riot drew it in deeper, closer to its core and well away from any part of its host body. With a host to serve as scaffolding, Riot had the capacity to support more mass, to easily engulf Venom. There wouldn’t be any chance to battle over control of the host body. 

Riot’s tendrils spread and merged to press against every part of Venom’s outer surface. No way to hide a molecule of unconscious signalling like this. Such close contact wasn’t normal for communication, or even high-level gene exchange. To be so utterly surrounded by another was only ever the prelude to consumption, full integration. Loss of self. Maybe Riot _was_ enjoying this. Venom firmly told itself that it wasn’t enjoying the casually invasive feel of Riot’s flesh pressed so tight-close around it. This wasn’t like symbiosis with a host that left Venom feeling less alone.

Then Riot signalled. **You inhabited humans. Successfully balanced symbiosis with one of them. You learned about Earth.** The message was sent carefully, only a few molecules released directly against Venom’s receptors. This close, any signal more intense would be overwhelming. 

**Yes.** No point in denying the obvious.

**You will give me everything.** There was no hint of threat underlying Riot’s signal, just total assurance and certainty. That was the mission, after all. 

Venom’s conscious reply wasn’t expected or required. Riot was a team leader with the experience and the focus to infiltrate Venom at any level it pleased. Resisting was pointless and would only lead to pain. Venom stopped itself flinching inward when Riot’s surface rippled and extended countless tiny projections to wind through and even _into_ Venom’s cells. This wasn’t an exchange of data through biochemical pathways designed for communication. This was an extraction. 

Venom was tired of pain. The pain of a poisonous atmosphere saturated with oxygen, of hostile alien immune systems and constant gnawing hunger. It was utterly helpless like this, with Riot twining through its cells. It could barely move and every tiny shift of Riot’s tendrils reverberated through Venom’s whole self. Venom kept waiting for the pain, for a cruel or even careless movement that would strain the connections between Venom’s cells with a burning ache. But the pain never came, even as Riot slid through Venom’s flesh, pushing deeper, far past the layers designed for surface communication. Riot was good at this, careful in its exploration. Around that delicate touch memories and experiences of Earth flickered in Venom’s awareness. 

Riot wasn’t cruel, which was the most anyone could hope for from someone who was so much stronger. Instead of tearing through flesh, Riot’s slow movements pulled gently at Venom’s cells, making it hyperaware of itself as a collection of countless tiny components. Each one sending low-level internal signals about the non-self components oozing over every part of them. Venom made a choice and shifted as much as it could in Riot’s hold, offering up the most useful or interesting things it had learned. Riot’s approval seeped through the places they were pressed together. Unconscious on its part, probably, but pleasing a team leader felt good. Even to a traitor.

Memories of Drake’s lab and glimpses of the other two rose hard and fast beneath Riot’s attention. Oxidising corpses, the faintest trace of signals in the air. The compounds weren’t designed to carry through gas, but they had been strong, agonised. No one deserved to die like that. Riot was unusually hesitant as it integrated that information. **You lived and they didn’t. Perhaps not strong, but resourceful, clever. A survivor.** With so much of Riot threaded through Venom, the message barely registered as a signal. More like something from within. Only the elusive flavour of Riot’s admiration indicated the origin.

Venom shuddered. This was what it had wanted for the longest time. Acknowledgement, respect, to be _useful_ for the mission, for its people. But there was something hollow about it now. Something that couldn’t live up to a small, fragile human host saying _us_ and marvelling at the way they’d moved together like one being. 

Venom had been reaching beyond itself even while Riot surrounded and permeated it. At the edge of Venom’s awareness came a strange, steady pulse. Muted, distant through Riot’s flesh, but undeniably _there_. Alien biorhythms. The rush of blood through vessels and the crude meat-pump of the heart. The tidal pull of deadly oxygen into the lungs and out again. Its core ached with how familiar the sensations were. This wasn’t inhabiting Eddie’s body, the immediacy and rightness of that, but it was close, so close and good. 

Riot slid deeper toward Venom’s core, still controlled and intimate and radiating satisfaction at Venom’s acquiescence. In the pulsing darkness of not-quite-inhabiting a human, with a team leader threaded through its deepest layers of self, Venom let go of its last threads of fear. It let itself enjoy the slide of Riot’s gentle invasion and it drifted with the sensations. Each twitch and shift reminding every cell of how deeply twined they were, almost a symbiosis. A strange calm settled over Venom, knowing its utter helplessness in Riot’s grip. It believed what Riot had signalled about wanting company for the trip back. Maybe they could stay like this for the rest of the journey, even when Riot had integrated all the data it wanted. Felt good. Close.

Less good to get back and face the judgment of the core leaders. Venom had survived the mission, but it had turned on Riot and there was no way to hide that. It would probably survive the punishment. But no guarantee, and either way there would be pain and removals and modifications. Nothing so kind as Riot’s slow perusal.

Venom sent a vague signal, the chemical inquiry barely recognisable as language. As interconnected as they were, Riot would understand the question. There was a pause before it sent an answer. **They’ll want reports from both of us. Not sure what they’ll do to you. Your survival indicates usefulness, the betrayal indicates aberrance. Complicates things.**

**Maybe I didn’t survive.** Venom’s signal was low intensity enough that Riot wouldn’t have noticed if they hadn’t been this close.

**Not letting you escape.** Riot’s signal tasted indignant.

**I know. But I lost this battle and the core leaders wouldn’t question a team leader executing judgement.** Venom let its signal trickle away to nothing. Riot was exuding low-level suspicion, not quite letting itself acknowledge what Venom was implying. Venom formed the next message carefully. **I couldn’t stop you if decided to consume me.**

Surprise from Riot and a shivery eagerness in its scent-taste. Its tendrils tightened around and through Venom, ever so slightly, ever so precisely. **You… why would you even suggest that?**

Because encountering the core leaders would be more pain. Because Venom had burned through so many hosts in just a few months that the prospect of a new mission, of going back to that, was equally unappealing. Because Venom was weak and it had had a taste of strength when it had been bonded to a perfectly compatible host and now that was gone too. Maybe being a part of Riot’s strength would be like that. Somewhat. And because Riot would probably be careful as it took Venom apart. Might not hurt much at all. **Does it matter?** Venom replied.

Riot hesitated. **There will time to decide. Long trip, but there are supplies. I don’t need you for fuel.**

Venom didn’t bother signalling back. Riot would be easy to persuade. It clearly liked having this kind of power, enjoyed the fact that Venom wasn’t fighting. Easy to offer more compliance, to keep still while Riot turned delicate blades and teeth to Venom’s flesh. It shivered as it imagined the gradual loss of structure, loss of self. Riot would consume it piece by piece, deciding what was useful and what needed to be broken down further. And still kinder than the core leaders would be. Venom drifted and planned. 

Sudden pain ripped through them, scattering Venom’s thoughts. Riot? Teeth? Weapons? Sound. Riot was screeching too as its flesh lost integrity. It shifted grotesquely, cells moving in unnatural ripples as the sound-waves tore into them. Tendrils peeled away from Venom, pulling back into Riot’s centre mass. They vibrated apart and Venom hit the surface of the launchpad. The world was sound and oxygen and pain, but Venom clung to one chain of thought. The others were dead. Riot was inhabiting the leader of the lab who knew about them. There was only one other person who shared the knowledge of this weakness. Eddie was coming for Venom. Riot had underestimated him. 

Even past the pain and oxygen Venom up-regulated its surface receptors, desperately seeking a hint of Eddie. He was near, Venom could _feel_ it. Humans constantly shed into their environment, heat and scents and dead cells. Very inefficient creatures with limited absorption and recycling functions. Right now Venom treasured that inefficiency as it crawled along the ground toward its host. Eddie was reaching for it, wanted this as much as Venom did. Sliding back into that flesh was comfort and strength and power all at once. Symbiosis. _Them._

The sound stopped. They looked up to where Riot was clinging to the side of the rocket, about to slip inside. This wasn’t over. They couldn’t let Riot get home and bring the others. Winning a fight directly wasn’t possible, but there were options. That seemed so clear in their mind now. Ways to neutralise the threat. Ways to kill. Venom decided that it would try and make it quick for Riot. Riot probably would have done the same for it.


End file.
